DAMOP Student Travel Support
The level of student participation at DAMOP meetings has been a pride and joy of this division for decades. Student Travel Support assists many students who might not otherwise be able to attend. Over 110 students applied for support this year, and more students than ever before were supported. This year 85 students received up to $500 each in travel support. For this huge success, we thank the DAMOP Education Committee chaired by Wesley Walter (Denison University) for their hard work in searching far and wide for funds. This year, we thank NIST, ARO, AFOSR, NSF, and DAMOP for their generous financial support. Keep your eyes on upcoming newsletters and broadcast emails for information on DAMOP 2010 Student Travel Support.
Plenary Prize Session
It is never too early to start thinking about nominations for the various prizes and awards sponsored by DAMOP and by the APS. Most prizes have a July 1 deadline except for the Thesis Prize, which typically has a deadline early in December. An award nomination packet includes a substantial amount of supporting material so please do not wait until the last minute. More information on prizes of interest to the DAMOP community can be found at this web site.
2009 I. I. Rabi Prize
From: APS web page
Recipient: Mikhail Lukin, Harvard University
Citation: "For pioneering theoretical and experimental work at the interface between quantum optics, quantum information processing, and the quantum many body problem."
Background:
Mikhail Lukin received the Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 1998. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics at Harvard University from 1998-2001. He joined the faculty of Harvard Physics Department as an Assistant Professor in 2001 and has been a Professor of Physics at Harvard since 2004. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America. His research interests include quantum optics, quantum control of atomic and nanoscale solid-state systems, quantum dynamics of many-body systems and quantum information science. He has co-authored over 150 technical papers and has received a number of awards, including Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, NSF Career Award, Adolph Lomb Medal of the Optical Society of America (200) and AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize. His research group webpage.
2009 Herbert P. Broida Prize for Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy of Chemical Physics
From: APS web page
Recipient: Gustav Gerber, Universitat Würzburg
Citation: "For the pioneering experimental realization of coherent control of molecular dynamics and chemical reactions with feedback-optimized laser pulses."
Background: Photograph and biography not presently available at time of publication.
Graduate Student Thesis Prize Session
We would like to recognize and congratulate all participants in the thesis prize session. In order of appearance they were: Javier von Stecher, Andrew Ludlow, Guthrie Partridge, and Thomas Corbitt. The DAMOP Thesis Prize Committee has the tough job of selecting the finalists and winners from numerous excellent nominations, and their job isn’t over until the final decision is made. This year we thank Alex Cronin (The University of Arizona) and his committee for their efforts. Usually there is only one winner, but this being an exceptional year, two winners were chosen. The committee met and selected the winners after their presentations at DAMOP 2009. Committee work begins again this fall with Elizabeth McCormack as chair (Bryn Mawr). The nomination deadline is December 1, 2009.
About this Year's Two DAMOP Thesis Prize Recipients
Andrew Ludlow, NIST-Boulder
Andrew Ludlow was raised in southeastern Connecticut. After graduating from Ledyard High School, he pursued undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. There he worked with Dr. Scott Bergeson, using optical cavities and laser thermometry techniques to study two photon absorption processes in crystals. After graduating magna cum laude with a B.S. in physics from BYU, in 2002 he began his doctoral studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Following time in various laboratories as part of the Optical Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program at CU, he began research in the group of Dr. Jun Ye at JILA. Andrew’s doctoral dissertation presents the development of an optical atomic clock based on ultracold neutral strontium atoms confined in an optical lattice. This work culminated in an accuracy evaluation of the newly constructed strontium optical frequency standard, demonstrating one of the smallest frequency uncertainties of any standard, including primary standards based on cesium. Furthermore, these efforts contributed to the international acceptance of the strontium standard as a practical realization of the meter and a secondary representation of the (SI) second. Andrew received the JILA scientific achievement award in 2006. He currently works with Dr. Chris Oates as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at NIST in Boulder.
Javier von Stecher, JILA-NIST and University of Colorado
Javier von Stecher was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and attended the University of Buenos Aires where he worked on the Casimir effect under Prof. F. D. Mazzitelli of the Physics Department. In 2002, he earned his Licenciatura degree in physics. In 2003, he moved to Boulder, Colorado, to begin graduate studies at the University of Colorado. In 2004, he joined Chris Greene’s group at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research focused on the study of ultracold few-body systems with tunable interactions. Through the application of powerful numerical techniques, he was able to improve the general understanding of few-body phenomena, in particular four-body processes. Since defending his dissertation in 2008, he has joined Dr. Ana Maria Rey’s group at JILA as a postdoctoral research associate. He is currently studying ways to control and manipulate quantum mechanical interactions in many-body quantum systems at both nano and mesoscopic scales.
Undergraduate Research Session
We applaud the hard work of all of the undergraduates who participated in the conference. From the pool of undergraduate participants, we would like to congratulate the few who were invited to speak in the Undergraduate Research Session: Bert D. Copsey, James Hostetter, Melissa Revelle, Cory D. Schillaci, Dustin Ursery, Smantha L. White. Their presentations were fabulous and spanned a wide variety of research topics. We would like to thank the DAMOP Education Committee, Wesley Walter [chair] (Denison University), Jan Chaloupka (William and Mary), and Tom Donnelley (Harvey Mudd) for the organization of this session. Jan Chaloupka is the new chair of the Education Committee and his new address is University of Northern Colorado.